A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

> where forms of serfdom were still present in the late 20th century

While I don't doubt it, I haven't been able to find anything that actually supports this claim. But considering who it was that actually owned serfs I think we can all agree that this is another reason it's a shame the wrong side won the Spanish Civil War.

Furthermore, I just recently learn that after Franco's death, the entire country decided that it was best to not investigate and prosecute any of the wrongdoers from before the pact in order to make the transition to democracy "more smooth" after the dictatorship fell apart. Imagine the same happening after Nazi Germany fell, hard to imagine people willingly just forgetting what happened...

> The Pact of Forgetting (Spanish: Pacto del Olvido) is the political decision by both leftist and rightist parties of Spain to avoid confronting directly the legacy of Francoism after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.[1] The Pact of Forgetting was an attempt to move on from the Civil War and subsequent repression and to concentrate on the future of Spain.[2] In making a smooth transition from autocracy and totalitarianism to democracy, the Pact ensured that there were no prosecutions for persons responsible for human rights violations or similar crimes committed during the Francoist period. On the other hand, Francoist public memorials, such as the mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen, fell into disuse for official occasions.[3] Also, the celebration of "Day of Victory" during the Franco era was changed to "Armed Forces Day" so respect was paid to both Nationalist and Republican parties of the Civil War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pact_of_Forgetting

No wonder Spain still experiences a lot of issues related to fascism, Francoists, Carlists and more, you cannot just pretend like something didn't happen.

A part of the ancient Latin and Greek literature has been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and another part by the Arabs.

The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type printing press, when their importance has soon become more historical than practical, due to the rapid advances that have started at that time.

Besides the ancient Latin and Greek books, the Arabs have also passed knowledge that had come from India and Persia and also the results of original research that went beyond what had been transmitted from others, especially in chemistry and mathematics, hence words like alchemy and algebra.

I've recently been enjoying 'Tales of the Alhambra' which are folk stories collated by the American writer, Washington Irving. He visited Andalusia and gathered stories from the citizens of the region which harken back to the time of the Al-Andalus.

I cannot recommend the book enough! The societies that he describes feel magical, enlightened, inspiring, thoughtful, advanced and romantic.

I often wonder, 'how inspirational was Al-Andalus for contemporary Europeans?' The discovery and founding of America by Europeans itself has many parallels to the much earlier establishment of Al-Andalus. It too was an idealistic colony. Coincidentally, the word California - which symbolically marks a 'boundary of the west' of sorts - has an Arabic root!

Irving is directly referenced and quoted multiple times in the article, and so is his "travel memoir" Tales of the Alhambra (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49947/49947-h/49947-h.htm)